This is the time of year for giving thanks and teaching our children about gratitude and appreciation. These values have great significance for our children and play a major role in their long-term development; many researchers have even found gratitude to be directly linked to our levels of happiness. Psychologist Jeffrey Froh conducted a study amongst a large group of middle school students to set out to find how specifically gratitude plays an intrinsic role in children’s lives and well-being. He sums up: “For our school and our students, what were the greater benefits of giving thanks? The results were clear: Higher levels of optimism, increased life satisfaction, and decreased negative feelings were all associated with students’ expressions of gratitude. By the follow-up three weeks later, students who had been instructed to count their blessings showed more gratitude toward people who had helped them, which led to more gratitude in general.”
Dr. Froh has not been the only one to come to this conclusion. Another article found in UC Berkeley’s Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life blog states that “appreciating the meaningful things and people in our lives may play an even larger role in our overall happiness than previously thought.” This article follows a study conducted by psychology professor Nancy Fagley, in which she found that “the challenge in fostering appreciation is that we want to periodically reflect on the positive aspects of our lives, value our friends and family, relish and savor the good times—without the practice of reflection becoming a rote habit or something that is taken for granted.” Gratitude has been proven to be linked to our overall happiness, but how then can we actively practice gratitude? More importantly, how do we teach our children to practice it so they may reap the benefits of it? Fagley suggests “for starters, that people focus on and value what they have, spend time outdoors, and reflect on their blessings and relationship with others.”
Though the idea behind practicing gratitude may be simple and seem inherent, realistically, how often do kids practice gratitude on a day-to-day basis? It’s important that parents look for ways to bring an active sense of appreciation into children’s lives in ways that are real and meaningful to them. Here are some activities that help make kids more conscious of showing gratitude and help them gain a bigger sense of appreciation for those around them: Teaching Appreciation through Camp Activities.
For more information about teaching kids gratitude, see:
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/a_lesson_in_thanks/
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/a_scientific_reason_to_stop_and_smell_the_roses
